Page 77

Some of the stories Kimberly has told in the last hour seem too crazy to be true. I’m convinced that the wine has made her embellish each one just to make them worse.
The woman who came home to find her husband naked in bed with the neighbor . . . and her husband.
The too-detailed story about the woman who tried to put a hit on her husband but gave the wrong picture to the hired gun so he tried to kill her brother. Her husband ended up with a much better life than her.
Then there was the man who left his wife of twenty years for a woman half his age only to find out she was his great-niece. Yuck. (Yes, they stayed together.)
A girl was sleeping with her college professor and bragged about it to her manicurist, who (surprise) was the professor’s wife. The girl failed that term.
The man who married the sexy French girl who he met at the grocery store only to find out she wasn’t French. She was from Detroit and was a pretty convincing con artist.
The one about the woman who, for over a year, was cheating on her husband with a man she met online. When she finally met the man, she was surprised when he turned out to be her husband.
There is no way a woman caught her husband sleeping with her sister, then her mother, then her divorce attorney. There is no possible way that she then chased him around the law office, hurling her heels at his head while he ran, pantless, through the halls.
I’m laughing, really laughing now, and Kimberly is holding her stomach, claiming that she saw the man a few days later, with the imprint of his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s heel glowing in the middle of his forehead.
“I’m not even joking! It was a mess! The best part of this entire story is that they are remarried now!” She smacks her hand against the counter, and I shake my head at the volume of her voice now that she’s drunk. I’m happy to see that Smith has gone upstairs and left the loud, wine-drinking women alone so I don’t have to feel bad about confusing him with our laughter at other people’s misery.
“Men are assholes. Every single one of them.” Kimberly raises her freshly refilled glass to my empty one. “But truth be told, women are assholes, too, so the only way for it to work is if you find an asshole you can deal with. One that makes you a little less of an asshole.”
Christian chooses this moment to enter the kitchen. “All this talk about assholes is traveling down the hallway.” I’d basically forgotten he was around at all. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s in a wheelchair. I hear myself gasp and Kimberly looks at me, a small smile playing on her lips.
“He will be fine,” she assures me.
He smiles at his fiancée and she squirms in the way she always does when he looks at her like that. I’m surprised by this. I knew she was forgiving him; I just didn’t know it was such a done deal or that she could look so happy doing it.
“Sorry.” She smiles down at him and he reaches for her hips, pulling her onto his lap. He winces when her thigh touches his injured leg, and she quickly adjusts herself on the opposite leg.
“It looks worse than it is,” he tells me when he notices me staring back and forth between the metal chair and the burned flesh on his leg.
“It’s true. He’s really milking this whole thing,” Kimberly teases, poking the dimple on his left cheek.
I look away.
“You’re here alone?” Vance asks, ignoring the glare Kimberly sends him when he bites at her finger. I can’t stop watching them even though I know I won’t be in their position anytime soon, if ever.
“Yeah. Hardin is back at his”—I stop to correct myself—“at Ken’s.”
Christian looks disappointed, and Kimberly has stopped her glaring, but I feel like the hole inside me that has been covered for the last hour is starting to show itself at the mention of Hardin’s name.
“How is he? I really wish he would answer my calls, the little asshole,” Christian mutters.
I blame the wine, but I snap at him, “He has a lot going on right now.” The bite in my tone is evident and I instantly feel like a jerk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I just know he is going through a lot right now. I don’t mean to be rude.”
I choose to ignore the smirk covering Kimberly’s face as I defend Hardin.
Christian shakes his head and laughs. “It’s fine. I deserve it all. I know he is. I just want to talk to him, but I know he will come around when he’s ready. I’ll leave you ladies to it; I just wanted to see what all the laughing and screeching was about. Make sure it wasn’t too much at my expense.”
With that, he kisses Kimberly, swiftly but tenderly, and he wheels himself out of the room. I hold my glass out, asking for a another refill.
“Wait, so that means you won’t be working with me anymore?” Kimberly asks. “You can’t leave me with all those bitchy women! You’re the only one I can stand, aside from Trevor’s new girlfriend.”
“Trevor has a girlfriend?” I sip the cool wine. Kimberly was right; the wine and laughter are helping. I can feel myself peering out of this shell, trying to come back to life; with each joke and absurd story, I’m finding it a little easier.
“Yes! The redhead! You know, the one who runs our social media?”
I try to place the woman but I can’t see past the wine dancing in my mind. “I don’t know her. How long have they been dating?”
“Only a few weeks. Get this, though.” Kimberly’s eyes light up at her favorite thing: office gossip. “Christian heard them together.”